Analyse the way people cope with a flood.
Consider techniques used in the text and explain their effects. Could use: listing, allusion and personal pronouns.
In the poem Cloudburst the poet, Kevin Ireland, reflects on the experience of a flood. A flood is a “once-in-a-thousand-years disaster.” Kevin uses language techniques to show that the people of the township were lucky to have experienced a flood instead of a different more common disaster. But they were also unlucky because it was a rare thing. The people of the town coped with the flood by realising what they are grateful for.
“Lucky us; others in the same lottery drew bombs, pestilence, earthquakes, fire, terror and starvation.” This shows that Kevin was feeling lucky. The town had not experienced these more common disasters, yet they had experienced a very rare one. “others in the same lottery” means that they were all in the lottery of life. And life made their decisions, not them.